Pope recalls John Paul II's beatification

Benedict addresses Poles after one-year anniversary

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 2 - Pope Benedict XVI on
Wednesday recalled the beatification of his predecessor John
Paul II on May 1, 2011.

Speaking in Polish at his general audience, Benedict told
a large group of Poles who had come to Rome for the one-year
anniversary: "Strengthened by his (John Paul's) heavenly
intercession, be faithful to God, to the Cross and the Holy
Gospel".

John Paul II was beatified at a ceremony presided over by
Benedict in St. Peter's Square with a crowd of around 1.5
million watching one of history's most popular popes move a step
from sainthood.

The Polish pope died aged 84 on April 2, 2005.
The beatification proclamation established that John
Paul's feast day would be October 22, the anniversary of the day
in 1978 when his pontificate was inaugurated.

Benedict sanctioned the beatification after a Vatican
commission officially attributed a miracle to John Paul
- the inexplicable recovery of a French nun, Sister Marie
Simon-Pierre, from Parkinson's Disease through the intervention
of the late pope, who also suffered from Parkinson's Disease.

John Paul will have to have another miracle recognised
before he can be canonized.

Benedict put his predecessor's beatification cause on a
fast track, waiving a rule requiring a five-year wait before the
start of the process, after crowds called on him to be made a
'Santo Subito!' (Saint Now!) at his funeral.

The Vatican, however, has insisted this did not mean the
process had been any less rigorous than otherwise would have
been the case.